The Deepest Night

“Wake up, Armand. Damn it, wake up!”

The sugar-ripe perfume of the flowers began to suffocate me. The moon grinned and the dogs howled and the stars began to toll, solemn as a knell, go, go, go—

I estimated the tower ruins to be around a hundred yards off. The dogs sounded even farther than that but were getting closer. A series of large tents covered the grounds between here and there; they were filled with soldiers and maybe prisoners, too, a harsh gabble of voices rising through the night.

go, go, go—

So far none of the guards had figured out exactly where we were. Chances were they didn’t really know what had happened, just that the dogs were barking like mad and something might have fallen from the sky. Most of the searchlights were spearing the heavens instead of the hillsides. Perhaps they were hunting for a mechanical dragon.

A dragon …

“Stay here,” I murmured, my hand over Mandy’s heart. “If you can hear me, don’t move.”

I glanced upward. Tell him, I entreated the stars. When he comes to, tell him what I’ve done, that I need him to stay hidden.

go! they insisted.

I lifted as smoke, found a pair of good, strong searchlights crossed against the black like swords, and Turned to dragon within their doubled brilliance.

Not mechanical, but amazing nonetheless. My body reflected the light in scintillating gold. My wings brushed it into shadows, lifting me, allowing me to weave in and out of their beams, to enjoy the din that arose from the ground in a great surge that drowned out even the dogs.

Shots pinged past. I went to smoke, waited, Turned again, farther from Armand this time, drawing the men and their fire after me.

The tent city spread below me. I dipped down, extended a talon, and sliced open the roof of the nearest one. Faces gaped skyward, raggedy men with open mouths. And then—

The men began to shout. To cheer. They were lifting their fists to the air, jumping up and down, exuberant.

“Huzzah!”

The prisoners! They must have heard about the new British weapon from their guards, or the papers, or the contagion of underground gossip. But now they saw that I was real, not gossip.

They thought I was here to save them.

Hope lit from face to face, joyous disbelief. I saw the panic of the guards, and it fed me like nectar. My animal heart expanded, seeing them so afraid; I wanted more of that. Much more.

I wanted, suddenly, not just to save one man. I wanted to tear this entire camp apart. I was savage with want.

“Huzzah! Huzzah!”

After all, I was a weapon, wasn’t I? I was a weapon of fangs and claws, of fantasy and fury. I was the accumulation of all that men feared, and despite the fact that I couldn’t breathe fire, I could still render this prison to ash. Turn it to dust, into a ruin again, instead of a place where people suffered and died, because I was sick of hiding, and I was sick of war, and I was sick of death stalking me and threatening me and filling me with dread.

Let it come. I was ready.

I wove higher, waited for a searchlight, dove down again. I pulled free a long span of fencing, until the barbed wire sliced apart in my claws.

Another tent ripped open, more men spilling out, roaring encouragement. The guards around them yelling and pushing, trying to regain control.

Another tent. Another.

We played that game until I had all the soldiers in sight beneath me, pointing their guns at me. Little bursts of light popped from their barrels like embers in a fireplace, but tat-tat-tat fast, because they were no longer using their rifles, but machine guns.

go, go, go, go!

Heat punctured my wing—my good wing—ripping swiftly into pain.

All my bravado evaporated. Instantly I was me again, only Eleanore, in trouble far over her head. I Turned to smoke and the pain dulled, but I’d been shot. Again.

I retreated through an unglazed window atop the nearest tower, slinking into darkness. I Turned to girl against the wall and mashed my hands against my mouth, because even though I no longer had wings, the wound was crippling, bowing me in half, and there was a scream in my throat that I knew I could not afford to release.

Tears filled my eyes. I bent my head into my palms and pressed them away.

My face prickled hot, but the rest of me was cold as the rock wall at my back; my skin began to creep. The scent of meat and decay filled my nose.

It was only then that I knew that I wasn’t alone.

I lifted my head.

There was a man in here, flat on a cot. Just one man; the rest of the chamber was barren. He was swathed in bandages that had seeped through with gore, holding himself very stiff and still, just like the mummy soldiers back at Tranquility who only moved once they recognized that no matter how immobile they tried to be, the agony was still going to come.

I looked at the man. The faint gleam of his eyes confirmed that he was looking back at me. Neither of us spoke.

Beyond the slit of the window, the stars sparked. The moon threw us light the color of bone.

It was Aubrey. Exactly like Armand back in that bell tower, I felt him, the dragon locked inside him, faded as an echo. Somewhere beneath this mess of blood and linen was Lord Aubrey Louis, Marquess of Sherborne, ace fighter pilot, his father’s obsession and his brother’s salvation.

Sssss. Sssss.

His breath wheezed in and out like he was struggling to breathe through a tube, a horrible, scratchy thin sound. The bandaged chest jerked up and down. The fingers of his left hand were curled against the blanket at his waist, and all his nails were black.

I lost myself then. Only for a moment. An awful mixture of rage and bitterness rose up inside me in a blind wave, obliterating all of my careful control, all at once, and I began to tremble.

We’d come all this way. We’d risked so much.

For nothing.

There was no way in hell this man was going to be able to ride my back home. I’d be surprised if he could even sit up.

Jesse, goddamn you, why? Why?

I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes, digging my nails into my palms to stop the shaking. I waited for the wave to recede. When I was able to open my eyes again, Aubrey attempted to speak.

“El …”

He ran out of air. Moonlight made a slick, cool sheen over the wreck of his face. He drew in a slower breath.

“ … leanore,” he finished. “At last.”

And he smiled at me.

Chapter 31

The night had shattered. A clamor shuddered up through the stone walls sheltering us, fed by gunfire and cries far below. I gave a final glance to the moon, then went to my knees beside Aubrey, combing my hair over my chest.